


you're the beacon (you're the light)

by deadgreeks



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Force Sensitivity, Force-Sensitive Finn, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Menstruation mention, Misgendering, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, dw it's fairly minor and it's all from the first order but take care of yourselves okay, kind of ?, rebelfinn, this probably isn't how the force works but shut up do i look like i care, trans Finn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 03:29:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13262697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadgreeks/pseuds/deadgreeks
Summary: There is a boy named Finn, and the Force loved him first.---An exploration of trans and force-sensitive Finn.





	you're the beacon (you're the light)

A long time ago--a hundred years ago, a thousand, maybe, but probably more like nine or ten--FN-2187 must have been a person.

The First Order tells them that they were never anyone before they were their designation, but they can’t brainwash common sense out of a person. None of the stormtroopers look the same, so they must have come from different places, different planets, and following that logic, they must have been different people. Babies, torn from their parents--or given over willingly?--for a righteous cause.

FN-2187 must have been someone’s daughter, once. He thinks about it a lot.

Maybe the moment he was born, he was given to a recruitment officer, or maybe he was taken from his mother’s arms later as she screamed for them to bring her baby girl back. Or maybe she knew he wasn’t a baby girl at all, and she screamed for them to bring her baby boy back just the same. Maybe she thought he was going to turn out wrong, too, and she sent him away, so she’d never have to see her daughter turn into a son.

The other stormtroopers begin to call him Modest, with all derision and scorn behind it that Phasma had hurled when she first said the word, because he tried to avoid showering with his unit. She’d demanded why he thought he was so much better than the others, but he didn’t have the language to voice that it wasn’t a matter of superiority, it was a matter of the others looking at his body. They didn’t, of course, he _knew_ that, they had all showered together their entire lives, but a year ago they had all looked the same, and now they’re...different.

When he tries to hide his bleeding at age twelve--FN-2187 is _smart_ , okay, the First Order doesn’t exactly give them health classes, but he knows the girls are the only ones with blood circling the drain in the shower, the others don’t observe each other, but he can’t help it, he can’t help but compare his body to the other boys and catalogue everything wrong with it--Phasma drags him to the tiny infirmary on their base.  She summons the doctor, the one who psychologically examines them, determines if they need to be decommissioned or reconditioned, and FN-2187 waits, wondering if Phasma can hear his thundering heart.

It takes a few sessions--all of which Phasma is, of course, present for--for the doctor to finally ask the right question.

“Do you think you are male, FN-2187?” the doctor asks, arching one thin brow. She is one of the only faces FN-2187 has ever seen in person outside of showering and sleeping hours.

FN-2187, behind his mask, frowns. “I am,” he says.

“You are _not_ ,” Phasma spits, and he doesn’t flinch.

“Has it not confused you that no one else seems to think this of you?” the doctor asks. Her fingers hover over a datapad, her nails filed to sharp points.

“They just don’t understand,” FN-2187 explains, and he feels like something in his chest is getting tighter. He doesn’t see facial expressions often (stormtroopers, he will learn someday, are far more expressive with their gestures than most people are, because it’s all they have to communicate emotion with reliably), but he can feel his own behind the mask, he knows what they mean--FN-2187 is _smart_ , okay, and he imagines that he learns the expressions in his dreams, where faces that don’t belong to his squadmates or the Supreme Leader appear, and he’s more right than he knows--and he knows by her expression that this isn’t what she wanted to hear.

“You and your squadron are the same, FN-2187,” she tells him patiently. “They are no different from you, so how could they not understand something about you?”

 _But we’re not the same_ , he thinks, but he knows that voicing things like that is what gets stormtroopers reconditioned. “I don’t know.”

“Do you see what I mean?” she says, and her voice is sickly sweet.

“I do,” he says, but he doesn’t.

“So this,” she pauses, waves one hand flippantly, “this _idea_ of yours is done, then?”

“What idea?”

She purses her lips. “The idea that you are male.”

“It’s not an idea though,” he says. “It’s true.”

“Mark her for reconditioning,” Phasma says flatly, and stands to leave, but the doctor puts a hand up placatingly, and gestures for Phasma to sit. She does not, but she doesn’t leave, either.

“I see that you have marked FN-2187 as having _leadership potential,_ due to her strategic capabilities and cognitive flexibility,” the doctor says, as though he isn’t there. It’s not uncommon for those who aren’t stormtroopers to treat them as furniture. “I think this may be a manifestation of that.”

“What do you mean?” Phasma asks. She’s obviously irritated, and FN-2187 smiles to himself.

“Well, it’s simply an unfortunate fact of the conditioning that it’s often those who don’t take to it completely are the stormtroopers who tend to excel in specialized skills,” she explains. “Take yourself, for instance. I once evaluated you due to your temper and your unhealthy sense of self-identity. I’ve seen nearly every superior officer, and many of our finest stormtroopers, for defects in their conditioning.”

Phasma bristles at the mention of her own evaluation, but she says nothing, and FN-2187 can’t help but be amused, knowing that it’s taking her full restraint not to snap at the doctor. “What are you saying, doctor?”

“I wouldn’t advise risking reconditioning,” the doctor says. “There are no others in your squadron who have shown the level of promise FN-2187 has to succeed you, should you perish or be promoted. This is an admittedly large defect in her conditioning, but she has never been cited for noncompliance or suspicious activity. If this is her only defect, I don’t think the almost certain consequence of reconditioning is worth it.”

“I see,” Phasma says, after a moment of silence. “Fine. But mark this in her file. If this idea of hers is brought up again, I want her reconditioned.”

“Already done,” the doctor says, with a sweet smile. She turns to FN-2187, as though acknowledging his existence again. “Disregard this idea,” she tells him severely. “You are not a person. You are a stormtrooper. You are a _unit_. There is nothing about you that the First Order does not know. If you were male, the First Order would already be aware. Trust in that. Now go.” She looks at Phasma. “She has missed enough of her schedule.”

 

When FN-2187 sleeps, he dreams of a woman with intricate braids and his eyes, with a smile that shines like the sun through the window behind her. He dreams of a man with soft hands who tightens the blankets around FN-2187 and tells him something kind in a language FN-2187 shouldn’t understand, but he does anyway.

He dreams of others, too, and of places and things. He dreams of an island, overcast and grim, of a three-pronged tree that calls his name--a name that fits as well as his armor doesn’t, but he can never recall it in the morning--he dreams of a girl who stopped crying a long time ago, and a boy who owns a blue and pink sky. He dreams of blue light, he dreams of a sandy-haired man with a kind face and capable hands, a woman with steely dark eyes and a light within that can never be extinguished. A boy, with dark hair and something simmering inside him waiting to explode. He dreams of more, too, flashes of things that come and go one night and he never finds again.

Somewhere, in the vast expanse of space he floats through--he imagines each of these things as stars he reaches out to touch--there is a creature, lurking in the darkness, prowling just out of reach. He glimpses it, sometimes, a monstrous, contorted thing that seems larger than any planet FN-2187 can imagine. He stays out of its reach, always running from it, fear and a voice that seems to be the universe around him driving him away.

Tonight, he dreams of a woman on her knees before an altar. He can’t hear the words of her prayers, but he feels the universe around him like water shifting around them, weighing their consequence, and carrying them away.

 _The Force is with you,_ the universe whispers, and FN-2187 wishes she could hear it. As he does every night, he forgets it all by morning.

 

FN-2187 learns to keep his _ideas_ to himself.

He finds small things that he can take comfort in. The androgyny of his uniform and his designation. When he’s fifteen, the First Order sterilizes him, and he doesn’t bleed anymore. He stops looking at himself in the shower, and he stops looking at the others too. He masters the art of bathing by touch alone.

He never stops feeling sick after combat simulations either, and he keeps that to himself too. He feels the oddest mix of shame and relief each time he feels his stomach drop when he sees his body count.

 _Should I be proud?_ He thinks, as Slip pumps his fist at a new high score. _Should I be proud that I could kill?_

He keeps a lot to himself.

 

The idea of defecting first enters his mind when a sanitation worker does, taking the plans for her former base with her. The Resistance destroys it just weeks later. Every worker on every First Order base is replaced by stormtroopers within the week until enough droids can be produced for the jobs, down to the trash collectors.

She’s captured not long after, and executed live on the holonet. FN-2187’s entire squadron, which has now been stationed on Starkiller Base, cheers. He clenches his fist and barely stops himself from being sick.

An _idea_ begins to form in his head.

 

He doesn’t have a plan.

Well, he has _a_ plan, but not a _good_ one.

Every night in his dreams, he sees the boy who owns his own sky--not a boy, now, a man--and the universe pushes FN-2187 towards him like a strong current.

 _This one,_ the universe whispers to him.

 _That’s not a plan,_ he tells the universe. _That’s a man._

 _This one,_ the universe insists, and it shows him how it feels to fly, for a moment.

 _No wonder he always looks so happy,_ FN-2187 thinks, feeling wonder as he soars.

 _This one_ , the universe insists again.

 _That one,_ he agrees, but he forgets by morning.

 

It takes about two months for droids to replace his squadron on Starkiller Base, and by that time, Phasma is seething. She hasn’t been put on sanitation duty herself, but FN-2187 knows she feels insulted that her squadron has been deemed so inconsequential that they could be spared for menial labor.

He thinks they might get the assignment just to placate her. It wouldn’t be the first time General Hux has caved just because he fears her.

“You will finally see your first real battle today,” she tells them proudly as they file onto a transport vessel. “I will be on site, but you will not be receiving my orders directly. Make the First Order proud.”

FN-2187’s heart feels heavy in his chest the entire flight to Jakku, and he barely listens as Phasma briefs them. _I can’t do this,_ he thinks, but he tries to reassure himself that when the moment comes, he will be brave.

 _Is this bravery?_ He thinks, as he watches Zeroes shoot a child in the chest.

 _No,_ he thinks, when Slip, the closest thing to a friend he ever had, falls.

For the first time in the waking world, for a brief moment he feels the air around him move like water, feels it in his bones and the ground, in the blaster fire and Slip’s body.

He stumbles, overwhelmed with it, still reeling after it’s passed, and when the moment comes to pull the trigger, he doesn’t.

There is no shame in him this time, no fear or sense of alienation. There is only resolution.

The universe whispers to him, _it’s time,_ less a sound and more waves lapping at his ankles in a coded message only he can decipher, and--and--

Kylo Ren looks at him. Across the tiny village, through the milling stormtroopers, he looks at him, and FN-2187 can feel it the way he felt the dust moving in the air minutes earlier; almost a physical sensation, but not quite.

 _I’ve seen you,_ Kylo Ren says, but he’s not speaking, and the sound isn’t distorted as it always is in his speeches, and somehow FN-2187 knows it’s not directed at him, even if it’s about him.

 _What the fuck is going on,_ FN-2187, who has no memory of his many dreams through the years, thinks. He assumes this must be what it’s like to break conditioning.

 

 _This one,_ the universe whispers when FN-2187 sees the pilot for the first time across the hanger.

 _That one,_ he agrees, and for the first time, he has a real plan.

 

“Finn,” he says, trying it out on his tongue, and it fits as well as his armor doesn’t. “Yeah, I like that! Finn!”

He has a name. He doesn’t know it, but the universe--the Force--has always known his name, whispered it to him at night as he slept, urging him towards his destiny.

 

For twenty-three years, no one in the galaxy knew Finn.

Certainly, his squadmates knew of FN-2187, the one who woke them up when they had nightmares after simulations, the one Phasma hated and favored in the same breath, the one that was different, the one they mocked because of it even as they relied on him to cover for them when they were ill.

He meets more new people than he ever has when he defects. A beautiful pilot who trusts him enough to hang the fate of the Resistance on his shoulders, and a beautiful girl who runs with him across the universe, the first person ever to offer him her hand. A dozen legendary heroes, and hundreds of people he only says a few words to, or says nothing to at all, and not one of them raises their eyebrows at the masculinity of his name, or comments on his voice when he forgets to deepen it.

In the span of a few days, the entire galaxy knows him, and every child for a thousand years will know his name.

 

The Resistance is different from the First Order in many ways.

Some of them, Finn hates, like the complete lack of structure. When he asks for a schedule, someone gives him a datapad with spaces where each hour is blank for him to fill in himself. He likes Poe, of course he does, but sharing a ’fresher with him is torture because _how is Finn supposed to know when he can use it when Poe showers three times a day,_ completely randomly, "Whenever I need it, buddy." Getting used to choosing every single aspect of his life, down the clothes he wears on any given day, is nice, but _fuck_ is it difficult. He had never known how many minute decisions the First Order made for him until the requisitions officer asks him what kind of _toothbrush_ he would prefer.

Of course, Finn loves most of their differences. Knowing just how thoroughly the First Order had controlled his life only makes him hate them more. However difficult it is to adjust to his newfound freedom, Finn is _smart_ , okay, and he learns quickly. Every time Poe comes back from a mission, he brings him new trinkets or clothing or food, and Finn figures out quickly that he likes large boots, little replicas of strange animals, and he has a sweet tooth to rival Jessika Pava’s.

But he finds his favorite difference only moments after he wakes from his coma, confused and disoriented and, when he realizes that he’s wearing different clothes, so someone must have changed him, so _someone must know_.

He checks the chart by his bed, and there, beside the box ‘RACE: HUMAN’ is the box ‘GENDER: M’.

They know, and they didn’t change his chart, or his name--FINN, in big letters, no designation, just _him_ \--and something that has been tight in his chest since he was twelve years old begins to unwind.

The doctor who comes to examine him is very different from the one he saw eleven years ago. She’s warm and kind, she smiles a lot and jokes with him, and she has a weird sense of humor Finn likes. She isn’t cleanly pressed and polished within an inch of her life, her hair is in disarray and her uniform looks older than she is, and her nails are rounded, painted a flaking glittery blue. There are a lot of questions about his back, and a few other less dire injuries he’s sustained, and then she passes him a datapad. The words ‘HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY (HRT)’ glow at the top, but he doesn’t quite understand what they mean.

“Of course, there’s no rush or obligation, but General Leia thought that you may have an interest in this,” she says. “It’s our understanding that the opportunity is not presented to stormtroopers, so she asked that I pass this along to you.”

Finn scrolls through the information, reading it quickly. He feels--hope, and disbelief, warring in him. “‘Masculinizing effects’?” He reads off, unable to keep his voice from quivering.

“Yes. Testosterone would redistribute the fat on your body, deepen your voice, make you grow facial hair, things like that,” she explains. “A lot of it is permanent--that’s what the informed consent is for. So that we as doctors can be sure you know what changes you’re signing up for.”

“And all I have to do is sign this?” he asks, and he feels like he’s soaring.

“That’s right.” She smiles. “Take some time to think on it, okay? Permanent changes, remember. I’ve got to go see to another patient, but just press the alert button if you need anything.”

Finn nods, and he does take her advice. He takes exactly as much time as it takes to read the form twice, and he signs the line at the bottom, in crisp letters, FINN, and he thinks, _finally_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come and visit me on tumblr at [deadgreeks](http://deadgreeks.tumblr.com/).  
> This was kind of inspired by some headcanoning I did with the awesome [finnobliterateshux](http://finnobliterateshux.tumblr.com/) a week or so ago, which you can find [here](http://deadgreeks.tumblr.com/post/168882967437/finnobliterateshux-deadgreeks) :)  
> Title from Your Mother's Eyes by the Head and the Heart. The universe just loves Finn so much okay.  
> This fic reflects my experiences as a trans guy hardcore projecting onto Finn. Every trans person experiences being trans differently, so please don't take this fic as any kind of universal experience.  
> I kind of had the ending planned to be Finn finding his parents again and them accepting him because that's very important to me and that's kinda what all the musing at the beginning is about and I will probably write that as a sequel but yeah. The woman with his eyes and the man with soft hands in his dreams are his parents! I really kinda forgot I planned that ending until I was proofreading


End file.
